Tuesday, 31 March 2009

A current consultation is going on with Natural England, over a document / strategy relating to 'FUTURE LANDSCAPES'.Plenty of geography here, and a good excuse to explore how our landscapes are changing...

One change for the future was made today, when the SOUTH DOWNS was finally granted NATIONAL PARK status after decades of waiting.Those lesson plans and worksheets which ask how many National Parks there are will all have to be changed now ;)

Quick trip up to Hunstanton this morning to take 164 pictures of the famous stripy cliffs: the southern end of the cliffs near the promenade: wandered from the carrstone boulders in the tidal zone, to the base of the cliff and zoomed in on some of the individual rocks in the red and white rockfall zones. The light wasn't ideal, but that wasn't really the point in this case.

I then batch-resized the images ready to create a PHOTOSYNTH.

Taking my cue from Ollie Bray's BLOG POST, I installed Microsoft Silverlight, and then PHOTOSYNTH itself (having to keep reminding myself to use Internet Explorer rather than my usual Chrome)

PHOTOSYNTH installs 2 programmes: a web-browser plugin for viewing the 'synths' and an application for creating them.

If you've read this far and are thinking "what's a Photosynth anyway ?", here is a DESCRIPTION.

Friday, 13 March 2009

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Bought a cheap copy of Billy Connolly's 'Journey to the Edge of the World' in a well known supermarket yesterday...Visit the ITV website for more details on the series, which would be good viewing for those people studying Extreme Environments

There are some good descriptions of the changing landscape of areas like Nunavut, the majesty of icebergs and glaciers, and the experience of climbing one of the Tuktoyaktuk (also known locally as 'Tuk') pingos.

The ITV website has an interactive map and video footage, and you can catch up with episodes on the ITV PLAYER for the time being. There's also a GALLERY OF IMAGES.

Plenty of associated press and blog posts as well to flesh out the content.

The DVD is available from next monday, and features Billy's travelogue, which may provide an engaging classroom resource, although it has a 15 certificate, so there could be some 'fruity' language...